PRODUCTION NOTES a Film by the Brothers Strause Eric Balfour
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PRODUCTION NOTES A film by The Brothers Strause Starring Eric Balfour Donald Faison Scottie Thompson David Zayas Release date: November 11, 2010 Running time: 93 minutes Rated: TBC For more information contact Jillian Heggie at Hopscotch Films on: 02) 8303 3800 or email: [email protected] Skyline – Production Information 2 Production Information In the sci-fi thriller Skyline, strange lights descend on the city of Los Angeles, drawing people outside like moths to a flame. Once outdoors, a terrifying extraterrestrial force begins to swallow the entire human population off the face of the Earth. In a matter of hours, we will all be gone. Jarrod (ERIC BALFOUR of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Elaine’s (SCOTTIE THOMPSON of Star Trek) trip to Southern California was supposed to be a simple weekend away to visit Jarrod’s best friend, Terry (DONALD FAISON of television’s Scrubs), and Terry’s girlfriend, Candice (BRITTANY DANIEL of Club Dredd), for his birthday. But when sunrise arrives two hours early in the form of a haunting light from an unknown source, life as they know it is finished. As they watch in terror from Terry’s penthouse windows, people across the city are drawn outside and swallowed into massive alien ships that have blotted out the L.A. skyline. Now, it will take every survival instinct they have to elude capture from the thousands of monstrous creatures that are sweeping the city and searching for all humans in their path. From tankers to drones and hydra-like extraterrestrials, the aliens are inescapable and seemingly indestructible. In the sci-fi thriller Skyline, the end of the world has come…and it’s just outside your window. With Skyline, visual-effects masters THE BROTHERS STRAUSE (AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator—Requiem)—whose company Hydraulx has imagined visual effects for Avatar, 2012, Iron Man 2, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and 300—have directed, produced and financed an independent film of epic proportions. The behind-the-scenes production team includes cinematographer MICHAEL WATSON (A Perfect Getaway), editor NICHOLAS WAYMAN HARRIS (Sinner), production designer DREW DALTON (The Big Jump), costume designer BOBBIE MANNIX (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and composer Skyline – Production Information 3 MATTHEW MARGESON (Burning Palms). Creatures for the film are designed by the team of ALEC GILLIS & TOM WOODRUFF, JR. (AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator—Requiem). Skyline is written by first-time screenwriters JOSHUA CORDES & LIAM O’DONNELL and produced by KRISTIAN JAMES ANDRESEN and Liam O’Donnell. The executive producers are RYAN KAVANAUGH (Catfish), BRETT RATNER (21), TUCKER TOOLEY (Dear John), BRIAN TYLER (upcoming Columbus Circle) and BRIAN KAVANAUGH-JONES (upcoming Insidious). Skyline – Production Information 4 ABOUT THE PRODUCTION Drawn to the Story: Skyline Begins Since their teens, brothers COLIN and GREG STRAUSE (collectively known as the Brothers Strause) have been immersed in the world of visual effects. They began their careers crafting VFX for music videos and commercials and created their firm, the Santa Monica, California, based Hydraulx, as a full-service VFX house. After several years directing shorter-form projects, they were hired to helm the latest chapter in the blockbuster franchise that pits brutal aliens against galactic predators: 2007’s AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator—Requiem. When they considered making another film, they knew it would only happen if they could craft it in-house and control every aspect of production. A few weeks before Thanksgiving in 2009, the brothers were having lunch with longtime animation supervisor of Hydraulx, Joshua Cordes, and frequent writer of their music videos and commercials, Liam O’Donnell. They began to discuss ideas for a project they could entirely create within their own team. O’Donnell discusses the team’s process: “I’d been working with Greg and Colin for five years, developing scripts and creating treatments for their commercials and music videos. Kristian had been a producer with them on a couple of music videos up in Vancouver. We were trying to figure out what we could do with our own cameras and other equipment, and we had just shot a music video with Joshua at Hydraulx studio. The brothers own all these great spaces, and we had these awesome cameras and wondered what we could do to take advantage of that. We realized Greg had this amazing view of the city, and our story quickly became the end of the world outside of his window.” Skyline – Production Information 5 Fortuitously, Cordes had written a horror screenplay and shared it with his longtime collaborators. Explains Cordes: “While I was writing that script, I gave it to Liam to get his thoughts. Then he started giving me his scripts, and we began a working relationship. When the brothers suggested doing something internally, Liam approached me about joining forces and tackling this project.” As the team discussed ideas for Hydraulx’s first “homegrown” film, they imagined what could possibly happen to entice hundreds of thousands of people outside to stare up at the sky, just before they are sucked into alien ships and Earth becomes a vacant lot. They knew they could deliver the iconic visuals that had made the company the go-to group for VFX, but they also realized they had to answer big questions for the audience. Once all the people have been abducted, what happens to them? What do the people who are left to survive do next? The screenwriters and the brothers asked: “What if aliens were to come to this planet and trick us?” They imagined the concept of “Siren light” that played off of the ancient Greek tales of exotic women who would sing and lure sailors to crash their boats into the rocks. By emitting a seductive, beautiful sound that would pique our curiosity, the light would make us run to the window and take a look. Once we did, it would render us into powerless zombies and make us walk out of our building and out into the open. From there, newly susceptible, we would be abducted by the aliens. Director Colin Strause elaborates: “It’s a visually powerful epic alien- abduction movie with a great character story and heart. The premise is mass abduction on a global scale. For example, most people driving on a freeway who see an accident would look at the wreck. If some entity used these instinctual weaknesses against us, then it would wipe us out instantly. The event makes everyone equal. Everything flatlines at that point, and they are trying to survive what could be the end of the Earth.” He reflects that what most interested his brother and him was that there would be no compromise on their vision with Skyline, as they had the capabilities to make an independent film with enormous scope. “One of the Skyline – Production Information 6 coolest things about what the filmmakers behind Paranormal Activity did was that they just did it themselves,” Colin Strause says. “They didn’t have to answer to anyone. We thought, ‘We could do that, but we could do that 100 times bigger…because we have an effects studio, we’ve worked on almost 70 movies and we own our own equipment.’” Along with brother Greg, he knew that creating this project independently would be freeing and limit how much they would have to give in to a financing studio’s requests. “If you’re spending $100 million on a movie, a studio is going to want what it wants,” Colin Strause adds. “There’s always going to be some compromise. If it’s our money, then there is no compromise.” Greg Strause concurs: “One of the reasons we embarked upon Skyline was that in this day and age, movie budgets have become enormous. At the same time, movie studios have generally been cutting down the number of films they make. We were just at the boiling point. We said, ‘We’re going to shoot a movie ourselves.’ Skyline has gone from concept to release date in less than a year.” As they were going it on their own, they knew they had to have an even tighter organization for the production than a big-budget picture would. “One of the things that made it so efficient was our ‘power structure,’ as we call it,” Greg Strause continues. “The committee, the multiheaded dragon, only had five heads: Liam, Josh, Kristian, Colin and myself. It was easy for us to all do a group huddle. We have almost a decade working together with Josh and over five years with Liam. We’ve known Kristian for about 10 years, and we all speak the same language.” The tightly knit group they had assembled would make the casting, designing, shooting and editing of Skyline much more streamlined. It didn’t hurt that two siblings were helming the process. Explains Cordes: “Because you have co-directors and because they’re brothers, it allows for more collaboration.” O’Donnell adds: “At the same time, they are businessmen; they know the financial implications of a day of shooting. At Hydraulx, they have 120 Skyline – Production Information 7 employees. They don’t frivolously shoot or go over budget or schedule to feed their egos.” To prove that Skyline could be done on the budget and with the schedule they imagined, the production team put a teaser trailer together in a one-day shoot and acquired the necessary financing for a full film (and international presales) at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2010. Explains Greg Strause: “We told our investors, ‘Well here you go! That was a one-day shoot, so check out this teaser.’ Everyone was sold and believed we could do it.